The past, present, and future of in-car infotainment

In the beginning, there was radio... then vinyl (?!)... and now apps integration rules.

For decades, car infotainment meant just a radio. Then tape decks began appearing, eventually being joined by CD players. Now, Tape decks have disappeared as a factory option (the last car to come with a tape player was sold in 2010), and the CD is entering a slow but inexorable decline. They're being replaced by smartphones and streaming media. Compared to even a few years ago, new cars are far more connected to the outside world. It's a trend that's only going to continue. The always-updating consumer electronics industry and the rapid rise of the smartphone have combined to condition consumers to an incredibly rapid pace of development. People expect new devices every couple of years that are faster and more powerful, and they’re bringing those expectations out of the Apple or Android or Microsoft store and into the car dealership. As we covered recently, this has created a new set of challenges and opportunities for the automakers. For a range of reasons, car companies simply have to work with product development cycles that are three to five times longer than the tech industry. This lag is most visible to end users in the context of infotainment systems, which have certainly come a long way from AM radios and road atlases.

In some regards, our cars and trucks are becoming smartphone peripherals. In the same way that parents decry their children (even their middle-aged adult children) using smartphones at the dinner table, many show no desire to give up the constant stream of social media or streamed content just because they’re driving. Of course, having one’s face buried in a phone is somewhat more dangerous when in control of thousands of pounds of vehicle. Car-appropriate interfaces are a big focus of the car industry these days.

Unlike when smartphones initially became an ever-present life force, these days car infotainment is not all about bringing your own device to the party. Mobile operating systems, persistent wireless connections, and screens large and small are increasingly being incorporated into new cars. As is common with emerging automotive technologies, this tends to begin with the luxury technobarges at the very top end of the new car market, but trickle-down is a real thing when it comes to vehicle specifications, thanks to the realities of purchasing.

Those privileged enough to have been in the market for such a car recently may have a good idea of the infotainment state of the art. Thanks to the great recession, however, for the rest of us—now keeping our old cars for ever longer—the brave new world awaits. What does that world entail? It might be a cliché that you can’t understand your present or your future without an understanding of your past, but it’s a cliché I happen to like, and to that end, let's take a quick look at the history of car infotainment before returning to the present day to see what the OEMs have up their sleeves.

History of car entertainment, pre-iPod

In the beginning, cars were just cars. Drivers only had the road to occupy their attention, and, on longer journeys, any entertainment had to come from their passengers. (In this regard, cars were only a mild upgrade from ye olden horse-drawn days.) This shouldn't be too surprising: after all, the first radio stations in the US didn't appear until the late 1920s, by which point Ford already built more than 15 million Model Ts. Radios began to be fitted to cars in the 1930s, something that may have made the Joad family's cross-country road trip a little more bearable as the Okies left depression- and drought-ravaged Oklahoma for a better life in California.

Radio was it as far as in-car entertainment for the next few decades, leaving the choice of programming solely in the power of those with the transmitters. Being a nation of individualists, this would never last. Cars gave Americans the freedom to travel where they wanted, and those free-roaming citizens wanted to be able to choose their own soundtracks. To that end, in the 1950s, Chrysler bravely tried to make in-car record players a thing, even though any vinyl enthusiast can tell you that technology prefers its environment to be vibration-free. Unsurprisingly, the in-car record player never really caught on. None of Chrysler's rivals bothered offering record players, and they disappeared from Chrysler's option list after only a few years. Magnetic tape eventually proved to be a much better technology for automotive applications than grooved vinyl. In America that meant the large 8-track format, but by the 1970s, we caught up with the rest of the world and settled on the compact cassette.

Cassettes had a lot going for them. They were small—about the size of a smartphone for those of you too young to have seen them in the wild—and they were cheap. You could buy them blank and easily fill them up with audio, enabling custom playlists (again, for you young 'uns out there, this is where the term mix tape comes from). Sure, the sound quality wasn't amazing, and they could twist or get caught up inside the player, best exemplified by Chris Rock, Allen Payne, and Deezer D in the movie CB4, but those were minor quibbles in the grand scheme of things. Quality improvements were limited to the addition of Dolby noise reduction and slightly higher-quality magnetic tape, but otherwise the tape player remained little changed over its lifespan.

Yes, this was a somewhat frequent occurrence with cassette tapes (warning, there's some explicit language in the first few seconds).

The standard-fit tape deck finally disappeared from our roads in 2010, Lexus taking the honors of being the last OEM to include a tape deck in its SC430. Had this piece come during Ars Technica’s early years, we’d probably have picked the compact disc as the biggest beneficiary of the tape’s slow demise. CD players started showing up in cars not long after their arrival on the market in the 1980s, offering much better sound quality than tape, even if the early ones were almost as intolerant of bumpy roads as vinyl. By the late 1990s, writable (and then rewritable) discs were cheap enough to be disposable, keeping the now increasingly inaccurately named mix tape alive. These days, even the CD player is starting to prepare for its exit. According to Alex Bellus, an Automotive Analyst with IHS Automotive, CD player sales in cars are expected to fall by 80 percent in the US by 2021, and worldwide by fifty percent over the same timeframe. Meanwhile, we enter this brave new world of more advanced digital technologies making the leap from your smartphone to your next car's dashboard.

100 Reader Comments

Sadly, the manufacturers are still missing the mark. Give me a USB port and solid firmware that allows control of any device. Decode the popular lossy and lossless file formats. Make the interface snappy, dead simple to use, and upgradeable by the consumer.

My "premium" sound system manufactured for a 2013 VW has the following restrictions:- mp3 or wav formats only- shuffle can only address 2048 songs- a special cable for iphone (cannot natively read music through usb)- restricted to FAT32+ (no exFAT)

My 2008 aftermarket head unit was more capable than this "premium" option.

Ah, the good old 90 min. cassette. This one's an SA90, which meant slightly better sound quality.

SA60's for less stretch. At least that's what we used to think: Believing that the longer duration tapes used thinner material to fit all that tape into the cassette. I don't know how true that is. I recall hearing similar concerns regarding video tapes, and certainly owned shorter duration VHS tapes that looked as full on a reels as the 240s.

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No, that's not a dash-mounted Nintendo system, it's an 8-track cassette player. No, I've never seen one in the wild either

I have. I ain't even that old. In the era of tape, the convenience of getting to the track you wanted quickly without too much FFWD and Rewind was great. I recall the quality wasn't spectacular though.

I have Ford SYNC. My main gripe is the screen un-responsivnes and lack of gestures support. I keep comparing it to an iPad and it's nowhere near. Scrolling a map is nearly impossible. They tweaked the GUI and the system upgrades can be done by the user via a flash drive. I've done it twice in a year. Maps are on a SD card rather than on a DVD and it has USB ports for phone and drives. So it's getting there.

Funny, I've been preparing a speech along the similar lines for an advanced Toastmasters club. It should be noted that in 1930, Massachusetts registrar of motor vehicles George A. Parker proposed banning car radios because he was worried about the “distracted driving”. See http://markholtz.info/vg . Also, in 1930, the cost of car radio was $170.... for a car that already cost $600.

Sadly, the manufacturers are still missing the mark. Give me a USB port and solid firmware that allows control of any device. Decode the popular lossy and lossless file formats. Make the interface snappy, dead simple to use, and upgradeable by the consumer.

My "premium" sound system manufactured for a 2013 VW has the following restrictions:- mp3 or wav formats only- shuffle can only address 2048 songs- a special cable for iphone (cannot natively read music through usb)- restricted to FAT32+ (no exFAT)

My 2008 aftermarket head unit was more capable than this "premium" option.

Interesting. I've generally found VW more forward looking than Subaru, but my 2012 connects to my iDevice through the same USB port that I could use a flash drive on. It's not as streamlined as a touchscreen (I hear that the nav headunit with touch was better), but it gives me complete access to all of my music.

in my 1997 Honda, I'm still using my old Belkin Autokit. I had to add a Scosche Passport to accommodate the updated 30 pin dock connector when FW disappeared, but it still works great. I plan to upgrade my 3GS in the fall - I wonder if the DC-Lightning adapter will work. It's kludgy, but the sound is pretty good and the car still run well.

I think we can all agree that anything the car manufacturers provide will end up being out of date before the car leaves the dealer.

Infotainment systems are a Bad Idea. Overpriced, non-upgradeable and poorly designed. Just give me a standard interface to the pre-amplifier and let me hook my iDevice up to it. For navigation, my little Garmin suction cups to the windscreen and works better than any in-car system could...and I have free lifetime updates to the maps. Let's see Ford and Microsoft top that!

My wife's 2007 Jeep has some kind of radio/cellphone interface...neither of us has ever bothered to try to figure out how it's supposed to work. It *does* have a 3.5mm AUX IN jack though. :-)

Am I the only one who doesn't want a 'smartphone' car 'infotainment' system full of app stores and apps? I don't want to have to pay for an extra cellular plan just for my car and god forbid I don't even want to think about going over those silly 4 gb data limits. Any solution that is going to be my '2nd most used' had better be able to live up to the 240 gb of data I pull per month at home.

However my car is still an aging 1999 model LHS and while I've replaced the factory headunit (who doesn't? especially in cars before 'infotainment'was a thing), it still does everything I need. I think the auto industry would be better off making a 'car form factor' across brands that would allow easy change of the unit in it. Either with factory models or aftermarket ones.

I think we can all agree that anything the car manufacturers provide will end up being out of date before the car leaves the dealer.

Infotainment systems are a Bad Idea. Overpriced, non-upgradeable and poorly designed. Just give me a standard interface to the pre-amplifier and let me hook my iDevice up to it. For navigation, my little Garmin suction cups to the windscreen and works better than any in-car system could...and I have free lifetime updates to the maps. Let's see Ford and Microsoft top that!

My wife's 2007 Jeep has some kind of radio/cellphone interface...neither of us has ever bothered to try to figure out how it's supposed to work. It *does* have a 3.5mm AUX IN jack though. :-)

So... How would you ever know they were a "Bad Idea" if you can't be bothered to try one out that you already have in your car?

I am consistently surprised by the push to add a tablet like interface to the car. I know that customers now view screens differently that they did 10 years ago and expect all the touch controls they have on their tablet/smart phone, but the car is simply a different beast. I don't think I should have to take my eye off of the road to change a control, but with a touch screen that is almost impossible. The physical feedback that comes *before* I activate a button is important to know what I am about to do without looking at it.

I believe that until someone is able to merge the flexibility and context sensitivity of a touch screen with the feedback and predictability that actual buttons provide infotainment systems will have to pick between safety and added functionality.

To make matters worse, a lot of the functionality we are trying to add to cars may just be too much information for drivers to absorb quickly. If I do look at my center console I should be able to get all of the info I need in a quick glance, it shouldn't take multiple seconds of my attention. The alternative of "Show 4 tracks -> press next -> show next 4 tracks" isn't all that much better, and may be worse.

I don't say these things to say we can't add cool features to our car, I'm just saying the design problems are not easy!

Sadly, the manufacturers are still missing the mark. Give me a USB port and solid firmware that allows control of any device. Decode the popular lossy and lossless file formats. Make the interface snappy, dead simple to use, and upgradeable by the consumer.

My "premium" sound system manufactured for a 2013 VW has the following restrictions:- mp3 or wav formats only- shuffle can only address 2048 songs- a special cable for iphone (cannot natively read music through usb)- restricted to FAT32+ (no exFAT)

My 2008 aftermarket head unit was more capable than this "premium" option.

Interesting. I've generally found VW more forward looking than Subaru, but my 2012 connects to my iDevice through the same USB port that I could use a flash drive on. It's not as streamlined as a touchscreen (I hear that the nav headunit with touch was better), but it gives me complete access to all of my music.

in my 1997 Honda, I'm still using my old Belkin Autokit. I had to add a Scosche Passport to accommodate the updated 30 pin dock connector when FW disappeared, but it still works great. I plan to upgrade my 3GS in the fall - I wonder if the DC-Lightning adapter will work. It's kludgy, but the sound is pretty good and the car still run well.

The 'good' choice is (2); it works, it sounds awesome, my iPhone 5S can connect BT, USB, or AUX. So far, I am happy with BT. No cables, and very convenient.

I can use 'Dora', the name I gave the Mazda voice UI, or Siri. The latter is smarter, the former is useful for hands free calling.

Some reviewers feel Mazda's unit is behind the curve. That is for the NAV option. The Bose system is just fine since I don't want a map in the display. I have MotionX on the 5S, and the audible directions are all I need or want.

All that said, no in-car system I've seen to date is all that good, and none are worth the price. I like what I have, but I wouldn't have pulled it from a shelf at Best Buy, etc.

I guess I feel that Car manufacturers are missing the boat big time. In a world of $199 7" Android* tablets, most $800 aftermarket or dealer-installed infotainment systems are woefully lacking.

It seems to me like there should be a better integration with your existing phone. Why not have a separate amplifier module with steering wheel controls integrated into the vehicle then have a tablet that is:- stripped of the larger battery (just standby/state power when car is not started.- capable of running "apps" like GPS, streaming media, waze, and a custom diagnostic/app from the auto manufacturer?- Integrate with the existing phone/ipod modem, voice etc via bluetooth (make a module available for those without a phone or that have more money for cell bills than sense)- wi-fi for home connectivity.- add on modules for media serving and Blu-Ray could be made for family vehicles (no videos on main screen)

Currently ALL of this technology exists, but take it from a techie and a dad, it is either a) way overpriced or b) difficult/impossible to integrate.

I well remember 8 tracks so that'll give you a hint to my age (50s), which makes the next comment even more relevant. My main gripe with in-car systems is the design UI:

+ text is too small+ touch-screen "buttons" are too small. Hitting those buttons with a wavering finger due to a moving automobile is difficult.+ excessive menu nesting+ lack of customization for quick access to features that a particular driver wants+ Excessive lag. System should respond *immediately* to user input. Especially important in a moving vehicle.

I'm not looking forward to my next vehicle purchase because the in-car computer evaluation may well nix an otherwise perfectly acceptable car -- and there's nothing I can do about it.

Progress has been made but it's surprising the auto makers aren't further along in UI design. Consumer Reports regularly rips the auto makers for their poorly designed systems and I have to agree.

"...This lag is most visible to end users in the context of infotainment systems, which have certainly come a long way from AM radios and road atlases."

Road Atlas was only interesting after all the out-of-state license plates had been counted along with cars having only one headlight.

Says you, I loved paging through the mapbooks sitting in the pop up rear facing seats in our Volvo 240 wagon when I was a kid.

So, I am curious...I am sure they were available in America, but I don't recall Volvo when I was younger. What country..?

We also sat in pop up seats in the back of a station/estate wagon but ours ran parallel to the long axis... When the back was full of junk, we lolled around on the floorboard or stood up in the front seat for a better view. Cars with one headlight were Popeye.

---- 'Baby On Board' signs... didn't need them.Any driver could glance over and see the kid in someone's lap or a face peering through a window or over the dash.

"...This lag is most visible to end users in the context of infotainment systems, which have certainly come a long way from AM radios and road atlases."

Road Atlas was only interesting after all the out-of-state license plates had been counted along with cars having only one headlight.

Says you, I loved paging through the mapbooks sitting in the pop up rear facing seats in our Volvo 240 wagon when I was a kid.

So, I am curious...I am sure they were available in America, but I don't recall Volvo when I was younger. What country..?

We also sat in pop up seats in the back of a station/estate wagon but ours ran parallel to the long axis... When the back was full of junk, we lolled around on the floorboard or stood up in the front seat for a better view. Cars with one headlight were Popeye.

No discussion of in-car infotainment is complete without mention of the mighty empeg! Released in 1999 this ARM based Linux running MP3 player (OGG and FLAC support was later added) was really ahead of it's time. It fit into a standard single DIN slot also offered a separate optional FM tuner. A (still!) active community of supporters helped to add features.

+ text is too small+ touch-screen "buttons" are too small. Hitting those buttons with a wavering finger due to a moving automobile is difficult.

These are some of my big concerns with a touch UI too. I have a 2012 Mini Cooper with a joystick set up, and the physical feedback really helps, as I don't have to look at the screen once I know the menu set up.

(I've actually been very happy with my Mini's digital integration-- aside from the way Mini wants to integrate Apple devices with an awkward app linkup thing. I just use bluetooth for everything, and that's great for audio, but I still dream of getting my apple or google maps on the digital display from my iPhone.)

Says you, I loved paging through the mapbooks sitting in the pop up rear facing seats in our Volvo 240 wagon when I was a kid.

So, I am curious...I am sure they were available in America, but I don't recall Volvo when I was younger. What country..? ...

The US, it was a 1991.

Maybe a few years before then :^)

In place of the emerging flash MP3 players, I bought a portable CD player that could read MP3 and even CD-RW media. I don't think those ever caught on. Certainly, the flash player was smaller but the CD-RW could hold several hundred MB (plus exchange any number of CDs) versus 32MB or, perhaps 64MB, so for comparably priced flash players.

I think I bought the Rio Volt in 2001.It has a little LCD that lets me browse through the directory tree. This was important to me. While it reads file tags, many of my songs didn't have tags.. So, I just browsed to the directory I wanted and then shuffled an album...

Isn't that what BlackBerry with their QNX are trying to solve - OTA updates of the in-car software over a secure channel (which is running almost everywhere now; even Ford are switching from MS to QNX)... If they succeed, it will be dead simple to update and add new standards to your in-car system (like CarPlay which runs on top of QNX)

No, that's not a dash-mounted Nintendo system, it's an 8-track cassette player. No, I've never seen one in the wild either

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I have. I ain't even that old. In the era of tape, the convenience of getting to the track you wanted quickly without too much FFWD and Rewind was great. I recall the quality wasn't spectacular though.

Ok now I feel old, not only do I remember under dash 8-Tracks, but I used them enough to recall that you need to have a matchbook around to shove underneath the tape once in a while.

I have a 2014 Chevy Sonic with the MyLink system and I find it very convenient and easy to use. Especially coming off of a '99 Grand Prix that I had to use an FM transmitter with (though it generally worked ok).

Anyway, MyLink syncs to my 5s via Bluetooth (automatically and quite quickly. Especially if I use remote start as I approach the car, its usually synced by the time I actually get in the car and am ready to go). The talk button on the steering wheel activates Siri for voice controls, and works just as well as she normally does. It plays audio directly using my iPhone's player, so there is no concerns about format issues, and my entire library is available.

The only downside is the lack of proper navigation without the (rather costly) GM app, but that has yet to be an issue for me.

No, that's not a dash-mounted Nintendo system, it's an 8-track cassette player. No, I've never seen one in the wild either

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I have. I ain't even that old. In the era of tape, the convenience of getting to the track you wanted quickly without too much FFWD and Rewind was great. I recall the quality wasn't spectacular though.

Ok now I feel old, not only do I remember under dash 8-Tracks, but I used them enough to recall that you need to have a matchbook around to shove underneath the tape once in a while.

8 Track gets a bad wrap because of the durability of the tapes. 8 Track did some amazing things, like being a continuous loop tape so you didn't have to rewind, quadrophonic sound (think of this like early surround sound) and the ability to switch tracks at the touch of a button. The problem was the cartridges and the tape were terrible and when you combine this with the stress of being in a hot car all the time its no surprise that they would fail.

Ars-mind unite! What would you recommend for an aftermarket Android-friendly head unit?

It seems to me, the best option would be one that connects to the phone through Bluetooth and at the very least allows control of music and calls through the dash. Ideally it would aid in voice-driven commands as well. I have to believe someone has created this already.

Yamaha, in all their backward, behind-the times logic STILL has a Clarion AM/FM cassette stereo as the only audio option on the Royal Star Venture motorcycle. The good news is they've killed the bike altogether this year.

Given how fanatical people CAN be ( both pro and anti ) about various computer brands such as Apple,the question here is will there be a significant number of consumers who now choose carsDEPENDING ON THE BRAND OF THE ENTERTAINMENT SYSTEM ?

To invent a random example : I only choose Ford NOW because of the Apple systems that come with it.

No, that's not a dash-mounted Nintendo system, it's an 8-track cassette player. No, I've never seen one in the wild either

I have. I ain't even that old. In the era of tape, the convenience of getting to the track you wanted quickly without too much FFWD and Rewind was great. I recall the quality wasn't spectacular though.

No, that's not a dash-mounted Nintendo system, it's an 8-track cassette player. No, I've never seen one in the wild either

Quote:

I have. I ain't even that old. In the era of tape, the convenience of getting to the track you wanted quickly without too much FFWD and Rewind was great. I recall the quality wasn't spectacular though.

Ok now I feel old, not only do I remember under dash 8-Tracks, but I used them enough to recall that you need to have a matchbook around to shove underneath the tape once in a while.

Old is when one remembers using those "LP in a car" devices. Guess we'll find out if our parents read Ars.

Ars-mind unite! What would you recommend for an aftermarket Android-friendly head unit?

It seems to me, the best option would be one that connects to the phone through Bluetooth and at the very least allows control of music and calls through the dash. Ideally it would aid in voice-driven commands as well. I have to believe someone has created this already.

My better half has a Pioneer in her car that works well over bluetooth with Android.